EU FTAs & bilateral ties

Russia has lost its central argument in a four-year-old World Trade Organization complaint challenging the EU’s energy market laws: the right of the bloc to prevent a single company from owning both natural gas pipelines and distribution networks. The WTO ruled today that certain energy-supply measures imposed by the EU …

This week’s White House trade truce between the European Union and the United States will only stick if the two sides manage to enter a genuinely structured dialogue process. That won’t be easy. Jean-Claude Juncker’s success in cajoling US President Donald Trump to sign a joint statement is a diplomatic …

One of the more eye-catching aspects of the UK government’s recently launched consultation on its post-Brexit trading future was its stated ambition to ‘potentially’ join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, known as CPTPP. The 11-nation pact was identified as a priority for the UK in negotiating new …

One thing must be said about Jean-Claude Juncker’s skills as an international diplomat during his visit to the White House: he accomplished his mission, which was simply to ease transatlantic trade tensions. Juncker importantly won over the US to the notion of World Trade Organization reform, a new project championed …

Italy’s new coalition government is pushing a protectionist agenda that puts national sovereignty at the centre and may well set the country on a collision course with Brussels, Berlin and Paris, argues Nicola Casarini. The new government in Rome is promoting ‘Italy First’, a set of policies that may undermine …

Things are starting to wind down on the trade front before the summer recess. Some news – or at least official remarks, if not tweets – can be expected from European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker’s meeting with US President Donald Trump at the White House. Juncker will seek to sidestep …

It’s as if everything absolutely had to happen before everyone goes on holiday: inking a deal with Japan, holding a summit with China that actually delivers on a joint statement, launching a WTO reform initiative, introducing steel safeguards, slapping dumping duties on electric bikes and making progress on Mercosur negotiations. …

The Trump administration’s trade complaints against import duties applied by Canada, China, the EU, Mexico and Turkey on US goods are short and sweet – and almost identical. Washington argues that the measures are discriminatory and, except in the case of Mexico, they exceed permitted duty rates. The US lodged …

EU-Mercosur free trade negotiations gained new momentum during day-and-a-half talks among seven South American ministers and EU negotiators in Brussels. No deal was clinched, but diplomats on the Mercosur side say the ‘endgame’ is within reach. “The talks are going well,” European trade commissioner Cecilia Malmström said today. The parties …